Where Did It Go?

Time
Slips past
Perception of speed
Changes 
From beginning to end

“even as each minute seems to take an hour, 

each hour seems to fly by in a minute.”

~ Lauren Oliver, Delirium

Preparedness

Earth quakes
Tremors deep underground
Shaking foundations of homes, buildings and belief
Perceptions that our buildings are safe havens
And that our lives are forever solid
Yet when the shaking has passed
When buildings settle
belief solidifies with caution
Kits rebuilt, safety classes fill up once more
Our lives move forward once tremors become still.

“You can’t prepare for the details of every single possible thing 

that might come your way in the future, because the future is uncertain.”

~  Auliq Ice

Reappearance

There a perception of magic when

from the sky, the ceiling or just thin air, this leather pouch with keys lost one dark night three months ago

is suddenly lying on the carpet at my feet!

Everything in the room had been moved - not once, not twice but many times in the past three months…

What had vanished in the night

outside, or so I thought, reappeared without ceremony.

Now I’m not saying I am pure of heart but

my heart is purely happy and really, really surprised.

“Magic will find those with pure hearts, even when all seems lost.”

~ Morgan Rhodes, Failing Kingdoms

Lubbock Memories

I lived in Lubbock, Texas for eleven years. This rather fuzzy picture was taken from my front porch on Christmas Day of 1996. I could be off on the year but, I do remember that my sister Betty visited that year. I also remember that there was enough snow later on for the kids across the street to make a really good snow man, which did last about a week. I returned to Canada with many wonderful perceptions of Texas - except for the brown, brown winters. It seemed that there was only a smattering of evergreen trees throughout the city, although I am certain there must have been many more. Texas Tech campus in the spring and summer with it's amazing willow trees refreshed me when winter was done.

I have many friends in Lubbock still and I’m thinking of you all now. I can only imagine that the streets are all but impassable in many places - this blizzard is amazing, frightening and different. Texting tonight with a friend in Shallowater, a small town outside of Lubbock, I learned that the roads are too bad for regular travel.

Take care down there! I miss each and every one of you. Stay warm and safe!

“Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake.”

~ Sara Raasch,  Snow Like Ashes

Changing Messages

A perception: to defend oneself
coming all the way from the gut
Swooshing past heart and soul
Pushing “The Old Message” buttons in my head
And before I know it
I cannot hear today’s message
Today’s message quietly sits in the front of my head until I have settled “The Old Message” down.
Only then will “To-day’s Message” be given a chance to be heard.

“But I think that your entire life is a process of 

sorting out some of those early messages that you got.”

~ Bruce Springsteen

Growing Into

Growing Into 

It was the day after. Always on the day after Christmas there was a lovely quiet. Some people went to the mall for the great Boxing Day sales. A repeat of the Christmas shopping madness and yet a screeching reverse.  Bobby hated it. She had vowed five Christmas’s ago to not participate in either. Why five? Because it was the year that she graduated from high school, got her first job and her first apartment. In the fall when people gearing up for Christmas she decided that her holiday season was going to be exactly that - a holiday season. The shopping trips that her mother had insisted on were going to stop. 

Bobby loved decorating her apartment in reds and greens, gold and silver, bells and angels. She and her girlfriends had made parties out of decorating each other’s apartments. Oh, they did go shopping. But Bobby, and her friend Emelda, always was finished before the others. They would go to lunch, take their finds home and spent the rest of their afternooons wrapping their gifts. That first Christmas, when she woke up Christmas morning, in her quiet apartment, it had totally felt weird. She didn’t stay home long. She ripped open one of her presents, put all the rest of them in a glossy red and white shopping bag, and jumped in the shower. All showered and dressed in a brand new Christmas outfit she drove quickly across town to her parents home where she spent the day unwrapping and squealing over her gifts, as though she were still a teenager.

That first Boxing Day was when she felt the quiet. Her adult life was taking shape. She had slept in, as she planned. Made a special breakfast of waffles, strawberries and whipped cream for herself, as planned. Then in her pyjamas, with a cup of tea, she curled up on her her ratty old sofa with a new book and her old quilt from home. James Taylor on the stereo and sunshine in the window, she dozed. She had planned to go the Boxing Day sales, but cozy warmth enveloping her held her fast. Her phone played a bit of jazz. A text message from Emelda and Rheina calling her for a movie was the only thing that stirred her. At the end of that first day, including the movie, her perceptions about how to ‘do’ Christmas began to change. Since that time, the Christmas season was still exciting and fun. She went to church with her parents for services on Christmas Eve and felt at peace. Boxing Day had become her own special day to revel in ~ without sales and frenzied, crowded malls. Reading a new Christmas book, walking in crisp winter air, a movie with friends, learning what it was to grow into her own life.

“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…”

~ Louisa May Alcott,  Little Women

Heartfelt ~ 2

Well I do want to write a little piece tonight.

My perception of ‘little’ is shadowed by my perception of nothingness.

Nothingness in my frontal, parietal and cerebral lobes.

Good thing my heart is full!

Merry Christmas!

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments 

when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

~ Thornton Wilder

Unlike All the Rest

One Christmas Eve

unlike all the rest

save for twinkling lights and greenery

Christmas music and movies

turkey dinners with all the trimmings

The perception ~

Christmas will come and go with the same old nonsense

    And only one stocking hung by the chimney with care

Some have no stockings for their feet, 
     let alone for the chimney

Music spins and wafts in malls, 
      from street corners and homes

Movies may be from the hospitality of friends

Turkey and trimmings are in 
    story, 
      memory or 
         shelters

Christmas decor is on the houses and behind the windows.

One Christmas Eve under the full moon

Is unlike all the rest.

“ A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, 

like a thunderstorm, and we all go together.”

~ Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

Author's note: Edited January 14, 2024

The Next Part of the Story

The Next Part of the Story

*“ I wish I could believe like you.” It was a line from a movie. Chantelle had watched her mother continue her life after her father died. There was still too much fanciful thinking in the way she approached most things, especially Christmas. She still played dance music, made her trips to the shelters and the nursing homes. Chose partners from the gatherings that could barely stand up let alone glide and spin like her mom and dad had done. Her twin, Tanya, just told her to let their mom alone with her belief in the magic of Christmas. Her perception of Christmas was hers alone. Chantelle could have her own. Tanya and her brothers had not arrived yet. Chantelle, not in any relationship, had arrived early and would be staying on with her mother past the New Year. It seemed so very sad sometimes that her mother believed in the magic of the dance at Christmas. Couldn’t she just face that her beloved Oliver was gone, and for many years, and she didn’t have to keep living everything from the past.

Chantelle heard the door. Her mother called out "Chantelle are you home? Come here I have someone I want you to meet.” Chantelle rolled her eyes. Not one of those people from the shelter. Her mother insisted on bringing home people, feeding them, letting them bathe and there was one woman and her little one that she let stay all one Christmas Eve.

Chantelle had been curled up on the couch reading a mystery novel, already in her bathrobe and pyjama’s. She was hardly prepared to play host. It was to be an evening of quiet in front of the fireplace. Christmas lights and a reading lamp the only other lights in the living room. And now this.

"Chantelle. This is Howard." Chantelle looked up and blushed. Her mother was introducing a very handsome, well dressed man who smiled broadly, his blue eyes bright and kind. She stuttered out something polite and ran quickly upstairs. In a loud whisper, she called down from the landing "Mother. Get up here! Who is this guy?’

“Excuse me Howard. My daughter is calling. Go ahead and put the kettle on for tea. I’ll be right down.”

Isobel ran lightly up stairs as though she was still dancing. She sat down with her daughter, her own kind grey eyes lit up like they hadn’t been for years. “Howard and I have been working together at volunteer work for many years." She twirled and sat on the bed. "Tonight we went walking in the crisp winter air, snow crunching beneath our feet and stars twinkling above. Just like your father and I, and just like Howard and his wife did." With a shy smile she said "I have had to teach him how to dance. He's coming along but we’ll just keep practicing.”

“To believe in something and not to live it, is dishonest.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

*From Random First Lines: writingexercises.co.uk

Author's note: Edited January 14, 2024

Only Part of the Story

Only Part of the Story

The final days before Christmas were always a favourite time for Isobel. She had been on her own for many years. Her husband and childhood sweetheart, Oliver, had ‘closed his book’ eleven years previously the week before Christmas. He had always called death ‘closing a book’. Isabel thought it was kind of corny, but he believed that everyone’s life was a book. You could either slam the cover and throw the book away. Or, you could read each page, making notes along the margins, savouring each chapter. When he was asked how he liked the chapters with trauma or tragedy, he would just sit back and, tapping his pipe in the palm of his hand, he spoke. Then, as though he’d been preparing his answer just for this particular day, he would say: “Well, you know it’s like this. Those chapters that you call bad are not really bad. They’re just part of the story. Any good story has good and bad in it. Too much good and it’s just all syrupy sweet. Anything too sweet makes my face twist up. And then there’s too much bad. Too much bad and everybody wants to run the other direction. Toss the book away in a garbage heap. And that’s the way I see it.” Oliver would fill his pipe, tamp it down, light it and take a deep draw.

It was several years before Oliver had closed his book. The week before Christmas had become a special time. Isobel and Oliver had raised their family, three boys and twin girls, made sure they all went off to Universities and were safely on their way into their own stories. Then they made plans for how to live their lives in the now very quiet house. They did love their home and garden and had no plans to leave it as so many of their friends had. Their perception of retirement was very different from even what their children's perception. They took short trips, they had hobbies, they volunteered. They saw the world outside and the world inside their small town. But their very special time was the week before Christmas.

It began with decorating the whole house, complete with an eight foot Christmas tree that had been carefully selected at a shelter in the city. Each night, they went dancing. Dancing in the city, in their living room, at the homeless shelter, in nursing homes. As childhood sweethearts they had begun dancing together. They moved as one to all waltzes, tangos, even jive!  They had learned the Charleston and clog dancing. And they had the costumes to go with each dance. When they got  home, they went walking in the glittering white snow under starry skies.

Oliver closed his chapter early on one of those nights - oh not suicide - he just drifted away like the smoke from his pipe into night air. They had sat on the porch swing before going into the house, holding hands. Oliver had said he was tired and hadn’t danced with energy that night. Isobel looked up into the sky and saw a shooting star. When she turned to Oliver, he was gone. She sat with him like that for a while, a tear rolling down her cheek. With a quiet sob, she called the ambulance.

Her children came and stayed with her that week. Her sons danced with her in the living room. They all, sons, daughters and Isobel, made the rounds to the homeless shelter and the nursing homes where they danced with residents and those coming in from the cold. Now Isobel was on her own, her children scattered around the globe, like Oliver's books she was packing away. She continued with all that she and Oliver had done. The tree was smaller, the decorations were not as extravagant and she missed her dance partner. Dance music still played. There was a quiet walk in the crisp night and a tear still fell. Isobel smiled and still loved the final days before Christmas.

“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”

~ Mitch Albom

Early Christmas Past

Sushi Noku E. Broadway, Vancouver

Home again after a wonderful early Christmas with my sons Jeff, Jason and grand-dogs over the weekend. Last evening, an impromptu family Christmas supper of sushi and green tea with Jeff, Jason and niece Daisy and nephew Max replaced home with turkey and all the trimmings. We cleared an impressive amount of sushi dishes, chopsticks flying! I’ll worry about turkey another day. Any perception that I have of Christmas, although often accompanied by lights and glitter, is really sharing a meal, much laughter and lots of love with family.

“The Christmas memories you make this year 

will be the ones you remember in the years to come.”

~ Toni Sorenson

Protected or A Pillow

Two big dogs on either side may feel like great protection ~ but when they are sleeping soundly the perception could be that I am merely a pillow after another long day.

“When tough times come, it is particularly important 

to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.”

~ Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Victoria to Vancouver

 Early morning at the Bus Depot, the Parliament buildings brightening the sky, the morning held promise that the weather would hold for my ferry ride to see my sons and my grand-dogs. The water was relatively calm, the skies only a bit cloudy and the ferry was filled with pre-Christmas travellers.

I rather like bus rides! I crocheted more kitchen towels while checking the scenery I seldom see when I do the driving. And Pacific Coach Lines (PCL) has wifi so checking my email on my iPhone was quite convenient. Getting to the Pacific Buffet is faster.

Jason and my grand-dog Eva met me at the bus. Lunch was in order. We met Jeff at Bentei Sushi on Cambie and Broadway (Percy, my other grand-dog, stayed with Eva). So good to be with my sons! From there it was to a dog park, the SPCA, to Jeff’s for more visiting, to Jason’s for a bit and then……more sushi. This time at Sushi Loku. Both meals were delicious but for a return, my perception is that Sushi Loku at 592 East Broadway has the nicest presentation, flavour, crisp fresh salad, green tea/brown rice tea served with the meal and a cosy atmosphere.

Tuna and Avocado Salad with Garlic Chips at Sushi Loku

“I don’t discriminate against sushi. It’s all good in my book.”

~ Billy Horschel

Christmas Wrapping ~ 1

No perception of stress or strain today!
Christmas music……
Reading and writing……
A day for wrapping, ribbons and bows.
Not many things
Enough to satisfy my Christmas longing
Preparing for weekend family time in Vancouver!

“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of 

a happy family all wrapped up in each other.”

~ Burton Hillis

Ode to Weather

As much as we complain about the weather
Too cold and wet
Too hot and dry
Too windy, dusty, bright or dark
Or
Not warm enough
Not dry enough
Too calm ~ there must be a storm coming
Weather can always be counted on
Along with our perceptions of what weather should be
Conversation at the grocery till with perfect strangers!
On the bus to break uncomfortable distance with a seat mate
We complain about the weather…..
And yet it brings us together 
Gathers us together in malls, churches and coffee shops
Or snugged in our living rooms and kitchens
We need community 
We need family ~ and neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet ~
Will keep us from each other

“Nothing brings you together like a common enemy.”

~ David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

Baby Steps and Quiet Corners

Depression at Christmas time
is it’s own barrier against family times 

for joy, stories and fun ~
A thick, dark barrier full of fear

Tiny baby steps toward bright lights ~
Sitting in corners hearing laughter
eases the silent darkness,
thinning the barrier with great caution.

Depression at any time is its own barrier.  

Tiny baby steps and quiet corners are important ~ 

thinning the barrier to feel comfort, safety and joy

“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, 

live in the moment, live in the breath.”

~ Amit Ray, Om Chanting and Meditation

A Winter Daffodil

A chill came on the air today,

wind moist with stinging mist

Yesterday, the sun was lovely, warm and pleasing

A late winter daffodil ~ a mere perception of spring blooms despite wind, rain or sun.

Seasons change with coastal winds while this lone daffodil ignores the seasonal shifts.

“Embrace the weather, child, and 

you’ll understand the balance of the world.”

~ Dean Koontz, Brother Odd

Turnaround Monday Treasures

Done my day job for a few days
Writing set aside but for diary and blog

Late lunch at James Bay Heron Rock Bistro!

Lots of activity from morning to night!
Walking and talking and laughter and chat

To a huge mall seeking yarn for a project
UpTown Mall is vast and walking was long!

Then back to town to James Bay - hunger growled!
Heron Rock Bistro and a Smoked Salmon Benny with Horseradish Hollandaise more than satisfied that!
To say that I had the best Benny I’ve had would be understated.
A mere, and very delicious, perception of the horseradish
Thin crunchy curls of onion with home fried potatoes…………...but I digress.

A shopping wander through Second Chance Consignment next door
Leaving with Blossom Time china pieces and a fine piece of pottery.

Home for  a short break….hang a Christmas bow glittering green and red on the door…
So exhausted….sigh…….

Then off to the annual Victoria Athletic Club Christmas Party
Members attending bringing food donations for the Food Bank drive.
Catered beautifully by the Grand Pacific Hotel 
Door prizes won by fifteen members - I wasn’t one of them.

Now to bed after such an exhausting day!

“You can either be a victim of the world or an adventurer 

in search of treaure. It all depends on how you view your life.”

~ Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

Holding Stillness

May, 2008 Hornby Island

Hold still ~

stillness smooths sharp curves
softly stretching worries,
perceptions of great sadness in clouds adrift in open skies

~ Holding stillness

“There are seasons when to be still demands 

immeasurably higher strength than to act.”

~ Margaret Bottome

Author's note: Edited January 14, 2024

Go Deep

Go deep

recognize that gut feeling 

let it bring you to a halt
feel the stillness
in time to divine the next step,
a perception ~

inside your heart and soul.

Go deep ~ 

feel the feeling for what it is.
Only you know its meaning.

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.

Who looks outside, dream; who looks inside, awakes.”

~ C.G.Jung

Author's Note: Edited January 14, 2024

Stumbling Blocks

Stumbling blocks
Blocks that sound big and scary
Scary blocks of channels and streams
Streams dribbling over rocks
Rocks that are really only grains of sand
Sand piled and pushed together
Together, only a perception of blocks
Blocks with tiny spaces for streams
Streams of consciousness
Consciousness taking time for awakening
~ to perceptions of crumbling blocks.

“A stepping-stone can be a stumbling block if 

we can’t see it until after we have tripped over it.”

~ Cullen Hightower

My First Christmas Event of the Year

Poster from Carole to my personal email

My first Christmas party of the year! An annual Holiday Open House at Carole James Community Office on Fort St. here in Victoria. No politics spoken here - just warm holiday welcome and greetings from Carole, her staff and volunteers. No perception of vote garnering in this small community gathering. A nice way to end my work day! I have only known Carole to work with integrity and compassion for the people of her community, with a great big smile, gentle brown eyes and firm resolve.

“The spirit of Christmas 

is found when we lift 

the load of others.”

~ Toni Sorenson

http://www.carolejamesmla.ca

Author's note: Edited January 14, 2024

All the Must's and Have To's

All of the must’s and have to’s of old messages swirl around ~ pushing determination and will

aside, chasing dreams and beliefs into dark corners,
sneaking back into their own 
shadows raising the dim of belief and dreams.

As the fog lifts
Perception of today’s reality clears once more.

“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”

~ Aristotle Onassis

Book Review: The Girl Who Was Saturday Night by Heather O'Neill

Heather O’Neill wrote a wonderful story with colour, emotion and chaos. This Giller Prize finalist for 2014, The Girl Who Was Satuday Night, also gave me an insight into so many that are raised in challenging economic situations and family dysfunction.

Twins, Nicolas and Nouschka. Étienne Tremblay, their father, a once popular Québécois minstrel. Their mother, not in their lives. LouLou, their grandfather. All within the bounds of Boulevard Saint-Laurent. What could go wrong? What went wrong was everything and nothing. Nicolas and Nouschka were their father’s pretty and talented children, but only on stage. Their grandfather did the best he could for them, providing them with food and a home. And of course the French/English divide from the 1970’s when the twins were young children to the 1990’s when they were in their late teens, added it's own form of chaos.

Nouschka narrated this story of twins that were in the midst of their father’s celebrity and yet at loose and parentless ends. They both felt the loss of their mother, one other person that fell to the charm of Étienne Tremblay. Both Nicolas and Nouschka's perceptions of this loss play out very differently. This is the story.

For anyone that is morally sensitive this may not be a book you want to read. Where there is no one to raise a child, the culturally appropriate boundaries of sex and friendship are missing. Learned by experience only. 

The format of the book has been fairly controversial. First of all the cats that roam throughout the book, feral and lost but always landing on their feet, or just being there. Then 67 chapters, each one titled in words suggesting the chapter focus. The chapters were short.  All of this can be off putting initially but my reading is that it matched the chaotic lives of all the characters in this book.

“I was trying my best to straighten out my life, but I always ended up

 in the middle of some festive waste of time.”

~ Heather O’Neill, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Title:  The Girl Who Was Saturday Night

Author:  Heather O’Neill

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Publication Date: 2014

Format:  Soft Cover

ISBN: 978-144344-245-9 (pbk.)

Type:  Fiction ‘The author wishes to acknowledge the generous funding from the Canada Council for the Arts’

An Evening Out

Bubby’s Kitchen
355 Cook St.

Not a pub
Not a jazz club
But good coffee, great food and music.

This past Thursday, I shared a supper and a fun evening with two friends. At 8pm sharp, one of the staff sang for us.  Another confession! I didn’t even get her name. She accompanied herself on electric guitar and later on ukele. I did think the ukele carried her voice more beautifully than the guitar.  Even with my lack of attention to the musician's details and wonderfully plated meal, my perception of her musicality was present. 

My meal was beef rib and pasta ~ delicious ~ and some of that good coffee: a delicious latte. It was an enjoyable evening, one that I will do again - but next time I’ll pay attention to the entertainment and to the menu!

“Pay attention to the intricate details of 
your existence that you take for granted.”

~ Doug Dillon